Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Stanley Karnow has died at age 87.

A son of the author, Michael Karnow, told The Associated Press that his father died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Potomac, Md.

Stanley Karnow wrote the definitive book and television documentary about the Vietnam War and later won a Pulitzer for a history of the Philippines.

At first a Paris-based correspondent for Time magazine, Karnow was assigned in 1958 to Hong Kong as bureau chief for Southeast Asia and soon arrived in Vietnam, when the American presence was still confined to a small core of advisers. Karnow reported on the first two American deaths in Vietnam.